FPGA Based Videogame System

[Sneakyturtleegg]

Nobody cares.

[Wolf_]

There is an awful lot of diarrhea in this thread.

 

 

 

I call it drama.

I don't see how a discussion about system cycles, clock speeds, and input lag where everyone is calmly discussing how things works constitutes either of those two things. It looks like for whatever reason you simply can't stand others sharing information about the topic which really says more about yourselves than anyone that wants to exchange information about fpga vs emulator performance.

 

Nobody cares.

And clearly at the very least the people talking about it to each other care...

Edited May 8, 2017 by Wolf_

[phoenixdownita]

I found the answer from byuu wrt "cycle accurate" interesting to say the least:

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/emulation/comments/53jdqj/what_exactly_is_a_cycleaccurate_emulator/

 

didn't know he got down to bus holds in higan, impressive.

[Keatah]

I don't see how a discussion about system cycles, clock speeds, and input lag where everyone is calmly discussing how things works constitutes either of those two things. It looks like for whatever reason you simply can't stand others sharing information about the topic which really says more about yourselves than anyone that wants to exchange information about fpga vs emulator performance.

 

And clearly at the very least the people talking about it to each other care...

 

I absolutely love it! If you know anything about me (you don't) you'd know emulation is my favorite topic, with FPGA not all that far behind. So it is interesting drama. Drama is not always digging the dirt, schadefreude, trolling. It can be and that's how you've interpreted it.

 

In my case, the drama is the comparison and conflict in the stuggle to achieve perfection on a typical standard HDMI television or whatever display device is currently being manufactured. That's better drama than most movies and mini-series.

 

In a world of complexity I don't mind dropping a frame, no one is going to notice. No one is going to care. We've been gaming on the PC like so since the beginning of time.

 

And no one answered my question about HDMI buffering a frame. Does the HDMI display device render with scanlines going from top to bottom? If not, then it buffering 1 frame. So..

Edited May 8, 2017 by Keatah

[Wolf_]

 

I absolutely love it! If you know anything about me (you don't) you'd know emulation is my favorite topic, with FPGA not all that far behind. So it is interesting drama. Drama is not always digging the dirt, schadefreude, trolling. It can be and that's how you've interpreted it.

 

In a world of complexity I don't mind dropping a frame, no one is going to notice. No one is going to care. We've been gaming on the PC like so since the beginning of time.

 

And no one answered my question about HDMI buffering a frame. Does the HDMI display device render with scanlines going from top to bottom? If not, then it buffering 1 frame. So..

I never said I knew anything about you. I simply said this isn't drama and if you view it as such you are incorrect and have some kind of issue with a normal conversation that reflects more on yourself than on the quality of the conversation.

 

I believe the issue here is a miscommunication caused by the fact that for some reason you seem to think calling something drama is a compliment which it is not.

[Keatah]

I found the answer from byuu wrt cycle accurate interesting:

https://www.reddit.com/r/emulation/comments/53jdqj/what_exactly_is_a_cycleaccurate_emulator/

didn't know he got down to bus holds in higan, impressive.

 

That was a great read that. All it did was increase my respect for the down and dirty work being done to push emulation into new realms of accuracy. And of course it offers new insights to how these magnificent works of art do their thing.

[Keatah]

I never said I knew anything about you. I simply said this isn't drama and if you view it as such you are incorrect and have some kind of issue with a normal conversation that reflects more on yourself than on the quality of the conversation.

 

I believe the issue here is a miscommunication caused by the fact that for some reason you seem to think calling something drama is a compliment which it is not.

 

Mmm whatever. It is not a compliment, and not a negative. It is an interesting conflict. Drama is an exciting series of events, they can be good or bad. At least the dictionary says so.

 

So yes, more drama please!

Edited May 8, 2017 by Keatah

[Wolf_]

 

Mmm whatever. It is not a compliment, and not a negative. It is an interesting conflict. Drama is an exciting series of events, they can be good or bad. At least the dictionary says so.

 

So yes, more drama please!

Except it wasn't a conflict, it was just several people discussing performance of various technologies calmly. Drama might have a different meaning when applied to the theater but when applied to real life drama is synonymous with cancer. (Think Jersey Shore if that helps you process what drama has come to mean in modern times.) Unless you think "Ejaculate" still means "to exclaim" you should probably be aware the meanings of words can change over time.

[phoenixdownita]

...

And no one answered my question about HDMI buffering a frame. Does the HDMI display device render with scanlines going from top to bottom? If not, then it buffering 1 frame. So..

I believe it has nothing to do with HDMI and a lot to do with the actual panel.

For example I own a plasma TV with a panel that is 1024x768 (says so in the docs) and that supports only 720p or 1080i, both of which don't particularly align with the panel resolution at 1280x720 and 1920x1080.

When I look at it there are no borders around the pictures so obviously for 720p it needs somehow to generate content to fill the 768 res of the panel (generate/interpolate rows for the height and drop/blend columns for the width).

I believe that in order to "condition" the image the TV adds a full frame buffer and executes a lot of postprocessing on it ... I am not even sure if just one frame is enough as it may as well pipeline whatever algo it executes over a few stages.

 

A native 1080p panel being served a native 1080p image should have virtual zero lag as it can pump the image directly line by line (for 4K just quadruple the line so you are lagging only 1 line). Everything else non already at the native panel resolution would require processing and I am afraid it's whole buffer as soon as it involves fractionals.

[phoenixdownita]

..

Unless you think "Ejaculate" still means "to exclaim" you should probably be aware the meanings of words can change over time.

OK you caught my interest ... what??

[i totally miss the reference here, was this something that happened recently?]

[Keatah]

Except it wasn't a conflict, it was just several people discussing performance of various technologies calmly. Drama might have a different meaning when applied to the theater but when applied to real life drama is synonymous with cancer. (Think Jersey Shore if that helps you process what drama has come to mean in modern times.) Unless you think "Ejaculate" still means "to exclaim" you should probably be aware the meanings of words can change over time.

 

And therein lies the drama.

[Wolf_]

OK you caught my interest ... what??

[i totally miss the reference here, was this something that happened recently?]

In Sherlock Holmes whenever Sherlock makes a shocking deduction Watson reacts by "ejaculating", meaning he "exclaims his surprise". Clearly... it has taken on a different meaning in modern context. Really shocked me the first time I read though the complete collection in 5th grade...

 

http://qi.com/infocloud/sherlock-holmes

[Keatah]

I believe it has nothing to do with HDMI and a lot to do with the actual panel.

For example I own a plasma TV with a panel that is 1024x768 (says so in the docs) and that supports only 720p or 1080i, both of which don't particularly align with the panel resolution at 1280x720 and 1920x1080.

When I look at it there are no borders around the pictures so obviously for 720p it needs somehow to generate content to fill the 768 res of the panel (generate/interpolate rows for the height and drop/blend columns for the width).

I believe that in order to "condition" the image the TV adds a full frame buffer and executes a lot of postprocessing on it ... I am not even sure if just one frame is enough as it may as well pipeline whatever algo it executes over a few stages.

 

A native 1080p panel being served a native 1080p image should have virtual zero lag as it can pump the image directly line by line (for 4K just quadruple the line so you are lagging only 1 line). Everything else non already at the native panel resolution would require processing and I am afraid it's whole buffer as soon as it involves fractionals.

 

And the question remains. Let me put it this way. Once the HDMI signal comes into the television and goes through the circuits. Does the image get held and then all of a sudden snap to the screen, all pixels changing at once. Or is it scanned from top to bottom.

[Wolf_]

And therein lies the drama.

No, it doesn't. Because drama in a modern context means a bunch of children throwing crap at each other. There is absolutely nothing positive about it. To say something is drama is to say it is a pointless waste of time and effort by immature people.

 

But at this point that case could be made and it would be accurate. Congratulations, you created a self fulfilling prophecy.

[Keatah]

Let us not pollute this thread with your nonsense any more. Take it to pm if you want to continue.

[Wolf_]

Let us not pollute this thread with your nonsense any more. Take it to pm if you want to continue.

As the one that doesn't understand drama is a putdown it is clearly your nonsense. Although I suppose I'm probably equally at fault by now for trying to educate someone that is clearly unreceptive to new information. (Oh look, I know something about you)

[Keatah]

Drama is not fully 100% a put-down. Please read the dictionary. My final reply to you on this diversion.

[Wolf_]

Drama is not fully 100% a put-down. Please read the dictionary. My final reply to you on this diversion.

And my final reply to you is to reiterate:

 

Drama might have a different meaning when applied to the theater but when applied to real life drama is synonymous with cancer. (Think Jersey Shore if that helps you process what drama has come to mean in modern times.) Unless you think "Ejaculate" still means "to exclaim" you should probably be aware the meanings of words can change over time.

[phoenixdownita]

 

And the question remains. Let me put it this way. Once the HDMI signal comes into the television and goes through the circuits. Does the image get held and then all of a sudden snap to the screen, all pixels changing at once. Or is it scanned from top to bottom.

They could but in reality they are controlled by row and column so in the end is a scan:

http://www.nxp.com/wcm_documents/techzones/microcontrollers-techzone/Presentations/graphics.lcd.technologies.pdf

[+Random Terrain]

Why hasn't someone posted this yet? Isn't it against Internet law not to post it in cases like these?

 

youtube.com/watch?v=jHjFxJVeCQs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHjFxJVeCQs

[bikerspade]

I upgraded my Hi-Def NES front-loader from 2.25 to 3.01 today. I use an Everdrive N8 to play FDS games. I notice that in the FDS version of Metroid, the sound effect is now missing when shooting open doors. I made sure that the FDS sound channel is enabled. It didn't seem to have this issue with firmware 2.25. Any ideas? With this latest update, the FDS sound effects seem to work ok for FDS Zelda 1 and when transforming into a ball in FDS Metroid.

Can someone please confirm this issue with the latest Hi-Def NES firmware?

[Kismet]

 

And the question remains. Let me put it this way. Once the HDMI signal comes into the television and goes through the circuits. Does the image get held and then all of a sudden snap to the screen, all pixels changing at once. Or is it scanned from top to bottom.

 

People are overlooking the display driver. I'm not talking about the software side, I'm talking about that circuit that decides to take the HDMI signal, decode it, upscale/downscale it (thus buffering it), and then deciding where to draw the pixels. The pixels are never blanked like a CRT would, as that would generate flicker, which if you recall, all CRT's did, and I can distinctly recall being unable to use a CRT at 60hz after using one running at 85hz that appeared flicker-free.

 

So the correct answer would be 'it updates the pixels and holds them as fast as it's able to', otherwise running a panel at 288, 240,144,120, 90, 60hz would all look distinctly different. It's like how RAM works, in that the physical panel is being told to hold the pixel at a value, and you're changing the value through the display driver.

 

Here's a FPGA display driver without a framebuffer, http://hackaday.com/2011/09/09/putting-laptop-lcds-to-use-with-an-fpga/

So while we're talking about HDMI at 60hz, the LVDS is running at 500Mhz.

 

Here's a FPGA display driver with a framebuffer http://blog.tkjelectronics.dk/2012/10/lvds-display-controller-for-microprocessors/

Edited May 8, 2017 by Kismet

[Keatah]

So then the top pixels can be updated at the same time as the bottom pixels? Just that it happens at 60Hz.

[kevtris]

Can someone please confirm this issue with the latest Hi-Def NES firmware?

More important- does the same thing happen on an nt mini?

[kevtris]

Can someone test if the nt mini has that same problem? I backported the FDS code and want to make sure I didn't break anything. I don't have anything capable of playing it to test right now.